Rethinking the Dental Operatory

This is a conceptual architecture design looking at the cramped and stressful environments of dental operatories and how they could be helped. The overall design was thought to be transferable to any typical steel frame building with approximately 25' bays.

Focusing on the users, the typical square footages of these spaces were re-worked to enhance the human interaction with the space. As most of the user's time spent in these spaces is lying in a chair staring at the ceiling, this design aimed to provide a pleasing experience on the ceiling for positive user distraction without being bothersome to the doctors.

This comes to be in the form of a reflected water drainage system located on the exterior of the building casting light and shadows onto the interior ceiling plane. These reflections are then made special, for only the users can see them through a portal above the operatory chair angled as to prevent unwanted distraction.

The scenes depicted below are a video of the ceiling element mentioned above and a physical model built in March 2011.